74 .::::. :. ::.... ': ,':': ::::. '::: '::;::. ::. :::::. $ I , '-õ;, ') m. '7 \. " , . :::"... 41 ,I' '! , t :.:. .,.Þ III OOORAL HOTEL & COUNTRY CLUB MIAMI Florida's largest, finest golfing resort. For you who want both sport and luxury. J ---- .."," #. :sr-, .... ..... :: . <<0$ .. .;;::: a: ,:':,:,::, . "-- t l ,) "1 \' ...) II 00 ORAL HOTEL ON- THE-OCEAN MIAMI BEACH The only place to be on The Beach. For you who can demand the very best. J ''t.. .0", -oX. ----- ., .... , Call for confirmed reservatIons: Miami 532-3600, New York PL 2-7117, Chicago 774-5350, Toronto 927-4090. Write for brochures, or see your trave] agent. In New York, Doral Park Avenue . February 27 - March 5 : Doral $100,000 Open lJ ---- ::::: '; .. . "'>f 0:::... ::::. ;:SL 1-/ )) \' belong to the restricted circle of states- men and dIplomats, who among them- sel ves still knew and could preserve the truth. They were not likely to fall victims to their own falsehoods; they could deceive others without deceiving themsel ves. Both of these mitigating circumstances of the old art of lying are noticeably absent from the ma- nIpulation of facts that confronts us today. What, then, is the significance of these limitations, and why are we justi- fied in calling them mitigating cir- cumstances? Why has self-deception be- come an indispensable tool in the trade of image-making, and why should it be worse, for the world as well as for the liar himself, if he is deceived by his own lies than If he merely deceives others? What better moral excuse could a liar offer than that his a version to lying was so great that he had to con vince himself before he could lie to others- that, like Antonio in "The Tempest," he had to mdke "a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie"? And, finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, if the modern politi- cal lies are so big that they require a complete rearrangement of the whole factual texture-the making of another reality, as it were, into which they will fit without seam, crack, or fissure, ex- actly as the facts fitted into their own original context-what prevents these new stories, images, and non-facts from becoming an adequate substitute for reality and factuality? A medieval anecdote illustrates how difficult it can be to lie to others without lying to oneself. It is a story about what happened one night in a town on whose watchtower a sentry was on duty day and night to warn the people of the ap- proach of the enemy. The sentry was a man given to practical jokes, and that night he sounded the alarm just in order to give the townsfolk a little scare. His success was overwhelming: everybody rushed to the walls-includ- ing, at the last, the sentry himself. The tale suggests to what extent our apprehension of reality is dependent upon our sharing the world with our fellow-men, and what strength of char- acter is required to stick to anything, truth or lie, that is unshared. In other words, the more successful a liar is, the more likely it is that he will fall prey to his own fabrications. Furthermore, the self-deceived joker who proves to " : be in the same boat as his victims will appear vastly superior in trustworthiness to the cold-blooded liar who permits :::: :::: himself to enjoy his prank from with- out. Only self-deception is likely to create a semblance of truthfulness, and in a debate about facts the only persua- sive factor that sometimes has a chance to prevail against pleasure, fear, and profit is personal appearance. Current moral prejudice tends to be rather harsh in respect to cold-blooded lying, where- as the often highly developed art of self- deception is usudlly regarded with great tolerance and permissiveness. Among the few examples in literature that can be quoted against this current evalua- tion is the famous scene In the mon- astery at the beginning of "The Broth- ers Karamazov." The father, an in vetera te liar, asks the staretz, "And what must I do to gain salvation? ," and the staretz replie , "A hove all, never he to yourself'" Dostoevski adds no expla- natIon or elaboration. Arguments in support of the statement "It is better to lie to others than to deceive yourself" would have to point out that the cold-blooded liar remains aware of the distinc- tion hetween truth and falsehood, so the truth he is hiding from others has not yet been maneuvered out of the world altogether; It has found its last refuge in him. The injury done to re- ality is neither complete nor final, and, by the same token, the in jury done to the liar himself is not complete or final, either. He lied, but he is not yet a lIar. Both he and the world he deceived are not beyond "salvation" -to put it in the language of the staretz. Such completeness and potential fi- nality, which were unknown to former times, are the dangers that arIse out of the modern manipulation of facts. Even in the free world, where the govern- ment has not monopolized the power to decide and tell what factually is or is not, gigantic interest organizations have generalized a kind of raison d'etat frame of mInd such as was formerly restricted to the handlIng of foreign affairs and, in its worst excesses, to sit- uations of clear and present danger. And national propaganda on the go v- ern men t level has learned more than a few tricks from business practices and Madison A yen ue methods. Images made for dOll1estic consumption, as dis- tinglllshed from lies directed at a for- eign adversary, can become a realit} for everybody and first of all for the image- makers themselves, who while still in the act of preparing their "prod uct " are overwhelmed by the mere thought of their victims' potential numbers. No doubt, the originators of the lying image who "inspire" the hidden persuaders